


He loved, and he loved, and he lost him.

by QuillsInk



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: American Revolution, Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Historical Lams, Internalized Homophobia, John Laurens Dies, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillsInk/pseuds/QuillsInk
Summary: Credit for the beginning goes to @john-laurens on tumblr.In the early morning of August 27th 1782, when it is still dark, Hamilton awakes with an unexplainable, strange feeling in his chest that feels remarkably like a gunshot wound.A month or so later, he sees an article in a newspaper which causes turmoil in his soul and makes him realise that nothing can ever be the same again.Title inspired by the song “Hurts Like Hell”.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	He loved, and he loved, and he lost him.

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy folks! This is my first work on AO3!
> 
> Credit for the beginning goes to @john-laurens on tumblr, so go check out her blog, it’s absolutely amazing.
> 
> https://john-laurens.tumblr.com/
> 
> I know a lot of people have done the 1782 oneshot, but like, it’s my duty as a John Laurens fangirl to write one, sooooo.....here!

_A gunshot rings through the air._

_The bullet hits him. Just like always. He’s used to it by now._

_Every single battle, a wound. Every single battle, another gunshot, another bayonet thrust rendering him helpless. Every single battle, someone telling him to give up the fight, that he needed to survive. As if anyone cared._

_And every single battle, he continues to fight, continues to live to see another day. The battles pass by in a blur, and he had nothing to live for, and yet he could never die._

_But then he had someone to live for, and he began to try to restrain himself. But it was useless. The fire entered his blood, and there was nothing he could do with the adrenaline in his veins._

_This time hurts more than the others, because this time, he won’t survive._

_Death is something he’s chased, something his worried friends say he’s pursued like an infatuated boy courting a maid._

_That jest always added to his inner turmoil. He always brushed it off and faked a laugh, saying he was simply doing his duty as a soldier, that there was nothing to be worried about._

_But that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? To escape this cruel world. And it was always told to him disguised as a knife wound to his soul._

_He wanted to escape a world which wouldn’t let him live as he was. A world that would hate him if they knew the truth. A world which made him hate himself. Made him believe he deserved that hate, and maybe he did._

_Maybe he deserves his fate._

_But too cowardly to leave the world on his own, he let a redcoat whose name he’ll never know do it for him._

_That’s all he is. A coward. His conduct in battle wasn’t brave, it was reckless. His friends were right._

_He’s not brave. He’s a coward. A coward always submitting to what others wanted, never making decisions for himself._

_A hypocrite, too, he thinks to himself. Fighting a war for independence while still fighting within himself._

_He falls to the ground. He can see the redcoat who fired the shot, hears the pounding footsteps of the soldiers beside him._

_He thought dying would be quick, a flash of pain, and then darkness. But it’s not. It takes time for the soul to be separated from its body, and it’s painful._

_The bullet wound hurts, the pain spreading through his body until he can barely think. And now he has to bear the pain for all eternity. A pain he knows he deserves but is too cowardly to bear. But he cannot stay in this world, and this is his only way out._

Alexander wakes up with a start, breathing hard. There is no bullet, no redcoat. He is not in the army - he is in New York with his family. 

The war is over, he reminds himself. Well, not completely over, but nonetheless almost won. There was no gunshot.

It is early morning, and the sun has not yet risen. The sky is still dark, a few stars vainly glowing behind the clouds. Getting up, he walks instinctively to a corner of the room, facing southwest.

_He feels the flow of the river, hears the crashing waves slowly drawing closer to him. Something seems to pull him in. Slowly, he gets sucked into the depths, and he can’t breathe anymore. His vision goes dark._

“Alexander?”

He is in his bedroom, and his wife is looking at him, concerned. 

“What’s the matter?”

_He feels the river pulling him in back to its depths - he cannot escape the waters this time._

This is ridiculous. He is in his bedroom, not in the battlefield.

“Alexander?”

He fumbles for an explanation.“Nothing, my dear. I am merely used to the routine of being up before dawn, I suppose. The memories of the war still haunt me sometimes.”

The explanation seems to satisfy her, and she whispers something reassuring that he does not hear. Then, she gives her husband a soft smile, turns and goes back to sleep.

The answer doesn’t satisfy him, however.

_The bullet wound is bleeding onto his uniform._

He looks down sharply, and cannot see anything. He is in perfect health. But nothing else explains this feeling. And yet, _there is no bullet wound_.

The sun is beginning to rise. Alexander has a long day ahead of him, and he knows he should go back to sleep, but he can’t.

Alexander walks out of the bedroom, and goes down the hall to his study. He sits at his desk, then dips a quill in ink, and takes a sheet of paper. Maybe he can finish off some work and cross something off his list.

_It is bleeding._

He starts, and looks down at his paper. The ink has spilled over the desk, creating a quickly growing dark stain on the paper. Crumpling up the paper and throwing it in the bin, he takes a fresh sheet.

Alexander hesitates, not knowing what to write. Then, he remembers that Meade had written to him a while ago. He pulls out the letter, smiling at the cheerful letter, and the mentions of his precious son. Taking another sheet of paper, he starts to write.

* * *

Alexander sits at the table eating, talking animatedly to his wife. He looks at her with all the admiration of a lover, though they have been married for years at this point. He had written to Meade a while ago, gushing about his son and his family and his happiness in the new nation, which he will have a part in building.

They’re finally free from the tyranny of British rule, and now he has a say in the building of the new nation. He can make his mark on the world.

_All would be complete if his Jack was here._

He stops talking for a moment to remember. Every memory is tinged with pain and fear, but the beauty cannot be removed, because they are of his Jack.

“Alexander…”

He snaps out of it and looks at Betsy. She has stopped eating, and looks straight at him. “Yes, my dear?”

“Were you listening?” she asks. She seems to have a concerned look on her face, though Alexander cannot think why.

“No, I was not. I am sorry - could you please repeat?”

She continues to eat. “It is alright. Another has died in this war - there was an obituary in the newspaper today.”

He looks at her, confused. “‘Tis a pity indeed - the cost of liberty is life. But this happens quite regularly - what was the need to inform me this time?”

She sighs. “The obituary lamented the death of a soldier who died in Carolina.”

Carolina - no. _No_ . No, it can’t be. There are many others in Carolina, it cannot be, it _cannot_.

“And...?” he trails off.

“The soldier who died was one of your friends - from what you’ve told me, a dear friend, though I never had the pleasure of meeting him.”

Alexander is shaking. It can’t be. Yet, what other friend does he have in Carolina? And a dear friend too?

Betsy never met John.

“Who...who is it?”

She hesitates, then slides the newspaper across the table for him to see, page open to the obituary. He catches a familiar name out of the corner of his eye.

“John Laurens.”

He hears the metal sound of cutlery hitting the floor. 

He stands quickly, then grabs the table for support. Betsy gets up and stands next to him, worried.

His throat constricts, and he feels as though someone has stabbed him.

He is falling. The world seems to spin around him, his vision turning red. All he can hear is the sound of gunshots, canon fire,and screams. The screaming fills his head.

Alexander cannot lose someone else. He can’t.

He sees his wife out of the corner of his eye, hears her concerned enquiries. And yet he says nothing, for how can one speak when darkness comes to fill a place in his heart which was once whole?

He is falling.

He grabs the newspaper, and stares at the obituary. John is _dead_.

Unable to control himself, he forces himself to walk to his study, footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. Betsy cannot see him like this, she _cannot_. He shuts the door, then slumps onto the ground.

For a brief moment, he stares in front of him.

_He sees a gallant blonde in uniform holding a gun. He sees him shooting desperately at the redcoats, sees a bullet heading towards him. There’s no time to dodge._

A scream rings through the air, and Alexander doesn’t know whether it is his or the man’s.

He closes his eyes, hoping to be spared from this torment. 

_All he can see is a tall soldier splayed out on the grass. The gunshot wound grows, and the look of pain on the soldier’s face causes him to wince. The blood begins to stain his uniform, and the soldier stops moving. His face is peaceful now, blue eyes staring to the heavens where he soon shall be._

Alexander knows that soldier. It was John. His John. 

“Why!” he cries, tears falling from his eyes. “Why him, damnit!”

He sits on the floor, unaware of the passing of time, crying, crying, crying his heart out. He is falling in the dark, and the darkness seeps inside him until he cannot distinguish light and dark, cannot see what’s in front of him, cannot hear or see or feel or touch.

His eyes hurt, and he sits there, staring but seeing nothing, nothing but flashes of times long past.

He can’t breathe, and doesn’t want to. All he wants is for John to be alive, alive like the days during battle when the fire in the air found its way into each and every soldier.

But he isn’t. No matter how much he longs for it, John can never be alive again. He lies dead, moved on to a better world than this. Dead.

He who was so full of life, dead. He knows he can never be the same again, for now John is gone. Gone, never to return to this world. For a moment, he feels it can’t be true.

It can’t be true. John can’t be dead. And yet there it is, that horrible newspaper in his hand.

He feels a sharp pain in his chest, an ache of emptiness where something was once whole. Emptiness which can never be filled again by anything but darkness, emptiness which he feels sure even time cannot heal.

He’s angry. More than sad, angry. Why, out of everyone, _John?_ John, who was so full of life. 

He can breathe again. He gets up and walks over to his desk, and stares at the quill, ink pot, and sheaf of papers lying there, waiting to be used. He thinks of all the times he went to his pen for comfort, using words to describe feelings, displaying all the emotions swirling inside him displayed on a paper, showing anger and sadness and happiness and more by the scratch of a quill. He shakes his head, and turns away. For once, words cannot compensate.

For once, writing cannot be an outlet.

It never can be for things which words cannot describe, for the way he feels torn apart, never to heal again.

He feels himself falling again, falling, and he grasps his desk to feel something real.

And then he remembers, with a flash of fire that causes him to jump.

He remembers the light.

Remembers the blue eyes looking into his, remembers gazing at the star, remembers working with their friends, laughing and talking, jesting and being reprimanded. 

He remembers being in the thick of battle, with adrenaline coursing through his veins, feeling nothing but fire inside of him and around him. Remembers the sound of clattering hooves, of gunshots, of screams. 

A hurricane fills him once more, a swirling mass of anger and sadness and grief. To keep himself from falling, he remembers the light. The light of better times, when John was still alive. He can almost feel John in the room.

He can see around him once more. Looking up, he sees a ghostly figure in the room.

“Jack..” he breathes, not believing what he’s seeing.

The figure steps towards him. “I have to go, my dear boy,” it says, smiling softly.

“No...John - please!” he cries desperately, attempting to touch the figure, anything to show him he isn’t dreaming.

It fades away, and Alex is left with his hand outstretched, staring desperately into space, breathing heavily. And a lone tear makes its way down his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hey hello! Hope y’all enjoyed it, feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments if you want to!
> 
> Credit for the beginning goes to @john-laurens on tumblr, so go check out her blog, it’s absolutely amazing.
> 
> https://john-laurens.tumblr.com/
> 
> I have plans for a few more fics and oneshots, so I’ll try to post if exams don’t kill me first.
> 
> I’ve never seen anyone write a fic with john-laurens’s headcanon so OF COURSE I had to do it. I’ve also never seen anyone write a fic from Laurens’s POV when he dies and like his last thoughts, so I did it! And gave y’all extra angst!
> 
> You’re welcome.
> 
> I am fully aware that John didn’t drown to death, but I thought it was interesting that both Hamilton and Laurens died near a river of a gunshot, so I added some *foreshadowing* heheh. That’s your daily Lams angst for the day!
> 
> The funny thing is, Hamilton did actually write to Meade on the exact same day Laurens died and he didn’t know that was the day. Here’s the link if you’re curious-
> 
> https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0064
> 
> All their correspondence is pretty interesting, actually.
> 
> ANYWHOMSTWAYS hope y’all enjoyed this!


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